Adventures in Eggsitting
by Duck Life
Summary: Ryan and Esposito spend some time taking care of their great nephew. Set during "Vampire Weekend". Oneshot. Please R&R!


Fagan soared through the bullpen of the 12th precinct, a white orb hanging in the air like a tiny moon. Ryan reached out and caught the egg in his left hand and tossed it back to his partner across his desk. He missed his aim a bit, and Esposito had to lunge to grab it before lobbing it back. "You think this is what Beckett meant by being careful with it?" wondered Ryan out loud as he leaned back to catch Fagan.

"Egg's still intact," Esposito shrugged as he caught it reflexively.

"You know, every time I catch this it makes me hungry for an omelet," said Ryan. He held the egg in his hand, stared at it for a moment, and then launched it back at Esposito.

"Bro, that's sick," he said. "The egg is Castle's daughter's baby. That makes us…" He thought for a moment. "Its great uncles. You can't eat our great nephew." Ryan stared at him.

"Dude, it's an egg." He threw Fagan back to Esposito, who, surprisingly, fumbled it. It fell to the floor with a barely audible crack. Esposito pushed away from the desk in horror, his rolling chair sliding back across the hardwood floor so he could see the remains of Alexis' school project smashed beneath him.

"Crap." Esposito scooped up the shards of eggshell, the yolk and whites squirting through his fingers. "It's okay, I can fix it." He dumped the mess on Ryan's desk, evoking a glare from his partner, who tried to shove all his papers away from the spreading egg.

"All the king's horses and all the king's men," he murmured, shaking his head as Esposito tried to fit the pieces of eggshell back together like a puzzle. "That's never going to work. It's an egg, it's not like you can glue it back together."

"You want to go get me another egg then?" asked Esposito. Ryan sighed and stood up.

"I think there's a carton in the break room fridge. We could draw a face on it and no one would ever know the difference." Ryan walked across the nearly empty precinct to the refrigerator and popped open the door, his hand probing around inside looking for the Styrofoam container of eggs. "Don't mothers always know which egg is their egg and which ones aren't?" said Ryan ponderingly as he returned to his desk with a new egg.

"Yeah, but Alexis is a seventeen-year-old," Esposito pointed out.

"She's a pretty smart seventeen-year-old," Ryan contradicted, pulling a black Sharpie marker out of his desk drawer and beginning to trace eyes on the fresh egg. "Poor thing," he muttered, glancing up at the mangled mess of egg on the edge of his desk.

"What, are you planning on making it a tombstone now?" said Esposito.

"Nah, Beckett didn't mention a name," said Ryan, taking his suggestion far more seriously than Esposito had meant it. "Though in my head I've been calling him Sunny." Esposito stared at him.

"As in Bono?"

"As in Side Up."

Esposito shook his head and watched as Ryan returned to sketching out the new egg's face. "Hey, you're doing it wrong." He grabbed for the Sharpie, but Ryan held it away from him.

"Is there a wrong way to draw a face on an egg?" said Ryan.

"Yes," Esposito countered. "Your way." He lunged for the egg, but Ryan rolled away from his desk, keeping a firm grip on it. They squabbled for a moment over the desk before Captain Montgomery, fed up with the noise, stormed out of his office and approached Ryan and Esposito. They didn't notice, too caught up in their battle.

"What are you two doing?" he said, glaring at them. Ryan and Esposito glanced up slowly, feeling awkward. They both had a hand wrapped around the egg, and Ryan was holding the Sharpie up above his head.

"Paperwork," they said together. Montgomery just shook his head.

"Keep it down," he sighed. "There are adults working here." As he walked off, Ryan deflated somewhat and set the egg and the marker back on his desk.

"We really should get back to work," he admitted.

"Yeah," sighed Esposito, glancing at the yolk and egg whites still pooling on Ryan's desk. "Dibs on Sunny."


End file.
